Today’s New York Times has this effective editorial criticizing mandatory minimum sentencing provisions headlined “An Invitation to Overreach.” Here are excerpts:

The rise in mandatory minimum sentences has damaged the integrity of the justice system, reduced the role of judges in meting out punishment and increased the power of prosecutors beyond their proper roles.

A Times report this week shows how prosecutors can often compel suspects to plead guilty rather than risk going to trial by threatening to bring more serious charges that carry long mandatory prison terms. In such cases, prosecutors essentially determine punishment in a concealed, unreviewable process — doing what judges are supposed to do in open court, subject to review.

This dynamic is another reason to repeal mandatory sentencing laws, which have proved disastrous across the country, helping fill up prisons at a ruinous cost. These laws were conceived as a way to provide consistent, stern sentences for all offenders who commit the same crime. But they have made the problem much worse. They have shifted the justice system’s attention away from deciding guilt or innocence. In giving prosecutors more leverage, these laws often result in different sentences for different offenders who have committed similar crimes.

Mandatory minimums have created other problems. As the United States Sentencing Commission concluded, such sentences have fallen disproportionately on minorities…. These laws have helped fill prisons without increasing public safety. In drug-related crime, a RAND study found, they are less effective than drug treatment and discretionary sentencing.

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